CHURCH
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CHURCH
ertablisbment of any particular natioii or goyemment, aa the Chareh of England. 8. The sum of the various Christian denomunations in a country, as the Chareh in America. These are the ordinary uses of the word, and it is important, in order to a right understanding of its force in any case, to know in which of tliese senses it is employed. Much confnsion might be avoided if dispotants would always deariy state in which of all tiic»e equally admissible senses they nse the word.
IL Idea of ike Chwrck.—Th^ Christian religion (sab- jectiyely considered) is a divine life wroa^t in the soul of the believer hi Jesns by the Holy Ghost, whereby the man is nnited tiurough Christ nnto God, walks belbre him in holiness, and finally dies in his fsvor, and la received into his eternal glory. The personal relation lies wholly between the individoal and God. Bat the instinct of this new life is to prop- agate itself by diffusion, and fi>r thb diffusion it mast have organisation. This organisation is found in ^ Cliurch, whose function it Is to make universal the re- ligion of the individual. Moreover, the individual be- liever, for the nourishment of his own spiritual life, seeks communion with other believers ; and this com- munion b famished by the Church. *' The Christian Church is a raUgious-moral society, connected togeth- er by a common fiuth in Christ, and which seeks to^ represent in its united life the kingdom of God an- nounced by Christ" (Gieseler, Eoel Hiti, vol. i, § 1). *■*• Christianity contains, on the one hand, a divine phi- losophy, which we may call its religion, and a divine polity, which is its Church" (Arnold, MimsdL Works, N. T. p. U). The Church is the particular fbrm or expression of the kingdom of God, the institution through whose agency this spiritual and eternal king- dom is to be made effaotive among men.
But, althoui^ there are elements of truth in the statements already*made, it is further true that the Church, under the dispensation of the Spirit, is the necessary form or body of Christianity in the world. Xot that the Church it Christianity, any more than the body of man is his life. The object of Chris- tianity is the redemption of mankind ; and the Church is tiie divinely constituted means of the ordinary application of redemption to individuals of mankind. It is therefore something altogether more and high- er than a mere fbrm of society, or an organizal^n springing, like any merely human society, ftrom the common wants and sympathies of those who unite to form it. It is ''the kingdom and the royal dwdlin^- pUoe of Christ** upon the earth (Neander). It has, therefofre, a lif(^ of its own, of which Christ is the source, independent of the ordmary life of the order of nature. Christ, indeed, is the central source of life for both kingdoms (the kingdom of nature, and the king- dom of grace), but the mode of his vivifying opera- tion is very different in the one from what it is in the other. But the Romanist view (and so the Greek and High Aui^lican) assumes that the Church is a form of organic life imposed upon the Cluistian society in a sort of outward way. The Protestant doctrine, on the other hand, is, that the Church is the divinely in- s|Hred organic growth of the Christian life ; not, there- fore, a merely human society, but the society of the &ithftil, constituted by the Divine Sphit. The Bo- onanist view makes the outward form of the Church ttsential, and regards the internal nature as deriva- tive ; the Protestant view regards the internal life as the essence, and the outward and visible form as de- rivative, but boUi as divinely inspired and constituted (John X, 16; Matt xvi, 18 ; xviii, 16-18).
1. The ScnptvTt Idea,^Jn the N. T. the Church de- notes "that one mystical body of which Christ is the sole head, and in the unity of which all sahits, wheth- er in heaven, or on earth, or elsewhere, are necessarily included as constituent parts.'* For this Church Christ gave himself (Eph. v, 28). This Church, chosen in him before the foundation of the world (Eph. i, 4 ;
1 Peter 1, S), he noarisheth and cherisheth as his own flesh (Eph. V, 29, 80). The Church is called the House, the City, the Temple of God. To whom coming— ye are built up a spiritual house, a holy temple (1 Peter ii, 4, 5). Tliis spiritual temple is composed of all God*s people, and is his dwelling-place (1 Cor. iii, 17 ; 2 Cor. vi,16; Rev. xxi,8; xxii,14,15). The Church is uni- formly represented in the N. T. as the company of the toned; and they are spoken of as the body of Christ (1 Cor. xii, 27), as one body (Eph. iii, 6; iv, 4 ; 1 Cor. xii, 13, 20). Of tiiis body Christ is the Saviour (Eph. V, 28). They are also his bride (Eph. v, 81, 82 ; Rev. xzi, 9, 10), and his Ailness (Eph. 1, 28). They are termed also the light of the world (Matt v, 14), aad the salt of the earth (Matt v, 18), as indicating the Church to be the true source of spiritual illumination and the instrument of salvation to the world. For the work which the Church is to accomplish for Christ by teaching, disciplining, comforting, etc., it must neces- sarily be visible, though all its members may not al- ways be known.